Unfinished Business
by CodyLabs
Summary: The town was saved from Weirdmageddon, and the party has gone their separate ways. But their Summer has left a lot of loose ends, some more deadly than others. And one in particular gives cause for concern. And so Wendy, with radio support from her friends, ventures underground alone to deal with the Shapeshifter...


Wendy Corduroy pulled the thick metal door closed behind her, and turned to survey the darkened surroundings. She quickly located the short chain hanging from the ceiling, and reached up to pull it. A fine, high-pressurized spray of deionized water began to jet from several small sprinklers in the ceiling, painfully chilling her upper body. She reached up to secure her hat as the spray cut out, and was replaced with a furious but brief blast of hot air.

Now that she and the cargo with her had been rinsed and dried, the machinery announced that the sterilization process had been completed. It automatically unlocked and opened the small room's inner door, allowing Wendy to behold the remains of what once had been a lab.

The lab's owner, Stanford Pines, had vanished into an exile of confusion and insanity long before she and her friends had found this place. When he'd returned the previous Summer, it had been for an exceptionally brief and busy time, so that when he once again left on important business, a great many important details fell through the cracks. Among said details was this lab.

It was an underground chamber, cut directly into the impenetrable bedrock, with only one entrance and one exit, designed to contain and study those most dangerous of research subjects. Only one subject had ever been contained here, and the lab had done its job: it had kept the subject in containment.

It was a prison by any other name. Indeed, they hadn't returned to it as scientists today. They had returned as wardens.

Wendy adjusted the earpiece in her ear and reported in.

"All right." She said. "I'm in position and stuff. Everyone check comms and call signs."

A chipper, youthful voice boomed through the speaker. "This is Mabel! Moral support is standing by. Call sign 'Bubble blaster'!"

A second youthful voice joined his sister's on the same microphone. "Dipper here, consultation standing by. Call sign 'Time twister'… Wait, why do _we_ need call signs? We're all the way in California…"

A different voice, slightly older, spoke up from somewhere in the lab's control room. "Soooooos here! Freeze master standing by, dude. Call sign 'Fire Hammer dawgs.'"

His wife's voice joined him from the security room, where the camera feeds led. "And this is Melody. Overwatch is standing by. Call sign 'Dorky Dome'."

Wendy spoke up as she rounded a corner to behold the stasis chamber. "And this is Wendy. Good cop is go. Call sign 'Federal Axe Refund'. All stations, we are go for unfreeze."

"Okay, unfreezing dawg." Soos chimed, and pressed his button. The sound of the control clicking beneath his finger carried faintly through Wendy's earpiece, and brought with it a sense of foreboding.

"And remember." Wendy said. "If I don't give the call sign, do NOT let me out. Even if I'm hurt, even if you know I'm dying, even if you know it's safe, even if you can see me bleeding red; if I don't say those words, do. Not. Open. The door."

As the shapeshifter thawed, its cells, muscles, neurons, and body functions one by one came back to life. A finger began twitching there. A joint creaked here. A hair rustled up there. And some small part of his brain realized that he wasn't actually dead.

 _I'm alive_ … The thought ran slowly and sickly through his sluggish brain, searching for some other thought to connect with. _I'm stiff_ … He fell weakly to his knees, as the disappearing ice failed to keep him upright. _I hurt_ … As his nerves one by one reawakened, they painted him a picture of a body twisted, weakened, damaged and broken. No living thing was meant to be frozen solid, not even one as versatile as him. He may have been strong enough to survive, but it had taken a toll. Taken a great toll.

Some parts of his body wouldn't move when he told them to. Others were numb beyond belief. And as for the rest, it was agony. The slightest touch with the ground felt like a knife wound, and slightest bump felt like jarring impact. Even the warm air blowing through the tube felt like a bath of fire. He attempted to stand but was met with failure. He attempted to speak but was thwarted by a tongue not yet strong enough to support its own weight. He attempted to change forms but couldn't… Quite… Concentrate.

With nothing left to do, he waited. His body would heal, it would heal. Freezing wasn't the worst thing to ever befall him. Indeed, he'd survived it once before, and he'd adapted since then to handle it better.

Minutes after he returned to consciousness, the door of the cryo tube slid open and some object was tossed inside. He tried to stand to escape, but before he could straighten his arm, before he could even turn his head to see who had opened it, the tube's hatch slammed back shut again. So he instead turned to inspect the object which had been given him.

A medical kit.

Ah, that's right.

With his body still overwhelmed with the pains of the freeze, and his memory still so slow and sluggish, he had almost forgotten about his wound.

He muscled himself to a sitting position and looked down at his chest. The gash was still there, some 6 inches long and deep. It hurt, and continued to bleed. He fumbled the medical kit open and removed the stitching supplies. Though his hands shook and his sight was blurrier than he liked, he managed to sew himself up in perhaps 15 minutes.

As he waited, things corrected themselves. His body was nearly up to normal temperature, his muscles had been regained some strength, his sight was less blurry, and his hands didn't shake anymore. Most importantly, his mind was clear again.

He looked down at himself. He was little more than 4 feet tall, with spindly little humanoid limbs, and a head that felt disproportionately heavy. What the heck kind of wimpy form was this?

The memory of his last day before imprisonment returned to him, and he recalled that reeking, sweaty, moronic brat that had buried an axe in his chest. He'd taken this most recent form to taunt him, to rub his nose in his own mortality and weakness.

But that was then… What was now? When was now? How much time had passed since then, and who had awakened him? If it was some kindly passer-by, some ignorant chump, or perhaps Dr. Stanford himself, then perhaps this pre-teen form could be of some use. "Poor boy!" They'd say "What cruel villain froze you in here?" "Come out and have some hot chocolate!" They'd let an innocent boy right out. And then that innocent little boy could kill them, and be free.

Shifty found he was able to stand and walk again. So he did so, making sure to look as if he was still in immense pain.

With one arm, he scraped a layer of melting frost of the stasis tube wall, so that he could look out at whoever had thawed him.

It was that other kid. That tall, gangly human, with the uselessly long red fur on its scalp, and those spindly, sinewy limbs. He didn't have a lot of hope that the planned deception would work on this one, seeing as it was one of those that had trapped him in here. But he gave it a try anyway.

"Wendy!" He gasped in the first child's voice, pounding weakly on the glass. "That… That monster is loose! It… It trapped me in here! It… It cut me like I cut it, so I would look like it… Uh… Uh… Oh no, how do I prove that I'm me?! IT'S ME, WENDY! ARE YOU YOU? If you're you, let me out!"

The deception didn't work. The human merely laughed. "Dude." It said. "That's the lamest thing you've ever said. Dipper's in California right now. Like… Seriously, you're gonna have to do _way_ better than that."

Welp. It was worth a try. The shapeshifter rearranged its cells, relaxed its DNA bonds, and reverted back to its true, baseline form. Now that it was seeing with its own eyes, feeling with its own skin, and standing more securely on 4 legs, it felt much more comfortable. He flashed what might have been a smile if it had proper lips, and leaned back against the wall.

"Just toying with you, friend." It said. "Wanted to get a laugh."

"Yeah, right. Sure." The human said. "Anyway, hey, how you doing? You hurt? You cold?"

"Oh, no. Not anymore" He lied. "Just a little dizzy now. Thank you for the sewing things. I feel a lot better now that the wound is all taken care of."

"Good. Good." The human nodded again. "Well hey man, are you bored?"

He frowned. "Bored?" He asked. "That's not what I was expecting to hear…"

"Yeah, bored man." The human nodded and shrugged. "Thought you might be lonely down here, so I brought down a couple games. I mean, you can't really touch the pieces through the glass, so we can't play cards, but we can make it work. Might help you spend the time down here."

"Oh…" He smiled. "Why, I do believe that would be most pleasant. What games do you have?"

"Lesse here…" The human turned to a hand truck it had been wheeling behind it, and began unloading several colorful boxes. "Okay…" It listed. "We've got Chess… Checkers… Battle Chutes and Ladder Ships… What Could Go Wrong: The Game… Necro-however-you-pronounce-that-opoly… Don't Wake Stalin…"

He perked up, remembering the games the scientist used to play with him. "You got D n' D and more D in there?"

The human shoulders drooped. "Dude, I love that game! But naw man. Didn't want you to see a picture of an Ogre or an Impossi-Beast."

"Aw." He shrugged, and began turning over in his mind which game might be the best to use against her. "How about chess then?"

"Chess! Awesome." The human removed a small fold-out table and a lawn chair from the hand truck, and set them up in front of the stasis tube. Then it opened the box, and began setting the tiny pieces up on the board.

As it did, the shape shifter watched it.

He was most familiar with that body, having replicated and operated his own copy quite recently. But something about it seemed slightly different today. What was the difference?

Good a conversation starter as any, he supposed.

"How long has it been, Red?" He asked. "How long was I frozen?"

"Oh, uh…" The human counted off on its fingers. "About 7 months, I guess. We were down here last in July, and it's February now."

"Hmm." It said. "Just wondering, because I can see you've changed forms since last we met."

"Uh…?" The human shook its head. "Uh, sorry. That's just… That's not really a question humans usually… Uh… Ask…"

"Oh. My apologies. Didn't mean to be rude." He said.

"No, uh it's fine, it's not rude. It's probably just this jacket. Brown leather with a zipper, instead of green flannel with buttons. Colder weather, right? …And the hat. I traded hats with that other bro. Now he's got my hat and I've got his… You know, for humans, our clothes ain't a part of our bodies, so we can just… Take 'em off and swap 'em around, you know? It might seem like changing forms, but it's… Not."

"Mm…" He frowned. "No, it's more than clothes." He said. "You're moving a little differently, and I do believe your torso is bigger."

"Huh?" The human looked down at its torso. "Uh… Yeeeeeaaaaaah… That's umm… That's actually… REALLY a question humans never ask."

"Oh, sorry. Rude again." The shapeshifter then remembered a certain detail: this human was female. "Are you with child?" He asked.

The human blinked. "Umm…" It said. "Umm… Wait, you mean pregnant? Heck no! I'm 15, you perv! I… Uh… Actually, that's none of your darn business anyway, so can it. Anyway." It gestured to the chess board and sat down. "You're the white side, so you get first move. Let's play this GAME, shifty."

"Very well." _Oh, make no mistake, Red._ He thought to himself. _I'm all for playing games._ He pointed through the glass at his pieces. "Pawn to d4."

So the game continued. Wendy actually found it pretty fun. Part of the fun was the game itself, but most of it was the raw thrill of sitting 5 feet from a deadly monster and still being totally chill. (Really, come on. That's pretty cool.)

Beyond her earpiece, her friends offered advice and help as they could.

True to her roll of 'Moral support', Mabel chimed in occasionally with some boisterous encouragement, making the time much more relaxed than it would have otherwise been. In truth, hers was an entirely non-crucial task. They'd invented it for her when she'd insisted on joining in.

Soos and Melody were in charge of the door, and the safety of the monster's containment. They didn't have much to do in this quiet moment, so they turned to idle conversation. Incidentally, they forgot to leave their microphones off.

"I think the final boss was just the most awesome thing ever." Soos was saying.

"Oh man." Melody said. "I wish I could've seen it, but I never got past the space dragon."

"Oh, dude!" Soos gasped. "No, the final boss is best part of the game, dude! Maybe best part of the series! Like, if you search 'Space Androidoid' on MeTube, HALF the videos will be of just this one single boss. It might've been the best part of the 90's!"

"Really? Oh, shoooooot. What happens with this boss then?"

"No, dude. I can't spoil it. You gotta play it. But it was so sweet and so terrible… I cried, dude! I TOTALLY CRIED!"

"Well, weren't you in 4th grade at the time…?"

"Doesn't matter! I'm still crying now dude! Oh, I can still *Sob* see that boss shooting that laser at that poor little *Sob*…!"

"No, don't cry spoilers, Soos!" Melody gasped. "Don't talk. Just cry on my shoulder here. Just cry man."

"Hey." Dipper chimed in. "Soos, your microphone is still on. You know that, right?"

"Oh, *Sob* what, dude? Oh, *Sob* right. Sorry dude. I'll get it."

Unlike the others, Dipper was actively invested in every minute of this. He'd been very quiet and serious for the entire session, watching and listening and recording and making occasional comments and observations. Comments and observations include:

"Wait, Wendy likes D n' D and more D?"

"Wendy, the pawns can only attack diagonally. You want to build a zig-zag sort of defense so they can always defend and avenge each other."

"Mabel be quiet. And yes, they are called pawns. That's where the word comes from."

"Wendy, he's trying to catch you in a fork. Watch your rook."

"Melody, as he made any attempt to escape at all? No? Well that's good… I guess."

"Wait, what did he mean about Wendy's torso being bigger? I thought we were only doing plans A and B today… Or did… Uh… I'm gonna stop talking now."

Throughout the entire ordeal, no matter what was being said over the comms, Wendy kept up the appearance of being level, calm and casual. She didn't reveal that she was getting outside help, she kept her hair down over her earpiece, and she kept her jacket zipped up over the equipment. For they were here to test the creature. To weigh its motives, merits, evils, and dangers. To do that, it had to believe that it was in control. It had to believe it wasn't in danger.

Careful to maintain the facade, Wendy moved a knight.

"Hmm." The shapeshifter grunted. "Very clever. Very clever."

She waited for a moment.

"Hmm." The creature rumbled again. "Well then, rook to e7 then. Not that rook, the other one."

"Okie dokie." Wendy moved the piece for him.

Mabel's voice flooded the earpiece. "You ain't getting out that easy, Shifty! Your last little horse has it coming!"

"Mabel! Shush!" Dipper grunted. "And those are called Knights!"

Wendy thought through her next move.

While it waited, the monster spoke up. "So…" It said. "What _actually_ brings you down here, Red? I can't really be my boredom… I could hardly be bored while frozen, you know…"

"Well…" Wendy sighed. "You're right. It's… Uh… Well, we were all just talking over the phone about the stuff that happened last time we were down here… And we were talking about you. And Mabel spoke up, and she said that it was just really mean to leave you down here all frozen like this. So I thought: 'yeah, maybe she's right'. So I came down here to keep you company. To Let you know there's no hard feelings… You know?"

"Ah. I believe I remember her. Little metal-mouth…"

The shapeshifter's body stretched and twisted, shrunk and solidified into a familiar form: that of a grinning pre-teen girl in a skirt and light-up sweater. "Hey everyone!" The Mabel imitation chimed, in a pitch-perfect likeness. "Let's go knit sweaters until our fingers bleed and then go put those sweaters on hunky guys!"

"Hey, that was pretty good!" Wendy smiled. "I couldn't even tell the difference. But how did you know that she knits her own sweaters?"

"She's not a hard one to read." The Mabel imitation smiled.

"I don't sound a thing like that!" The real Mabel protested over the earpiece.

"You actually do." Dipper told her. "That was literally exactly you."

"Hey!" Wendy suggested to the monster. "Can you really take the form of anything you see? Do Dipper!"

"Which one was that again?" Shifty asked. "Sweaty-blue-vest?"

"Yeah."

The Mabel impression stretched, inverted, and thinned until it perfectly resembled her brother. "Uh-uhhhh!" The Dipper impression fidgeted. "Hey everyone, let's go on an adventure! I kiss a pillow with Wendy's face drawn on it!"

"That's perfect!" Wendy exclaimed.

"That's terrible!" The real Dipper exclaimed.

"That's perfect!" Mabel exclaimed.

"But how did you know about his awkward crush?" Wendy asked.

The shapeshifter gave her a knowing look. "Uh, remember when I took your form? He was about to kiss me. And I noticed."

"It would have been CPR, not kissing." Dipper muttered. "And for the record, I've never once kissed a pillow."

"No, Wendy's right." Mabel corrected him. "Shifty has you DOWN."

"Oh!" Wendy addressed the shapeshifter again. "Do Stanley!"

The Dipper impression shook its head. "Stanley?" It asked.

"Oh." Wendy frowned. "I guess you've only ever met his brother, Stanford."

"Stan…?" The shape shifter froze.

"Oh, you know, the author of them journal stuff." Wendy smiled when she saw how uncomfortable it made the creature. "Yeah, I met him. He's all back and stuff. Had a big 'ol adventure beyond time and space, and now he's chilling in… Peru? I don't know. Somewhere on the way to the Antarctic. But yeah. If you thought you had any mysteries to hold over our heads, you can just give it up, mate. We know lots of things now." She made her voice go all deep and slow for emphasis. "LOTS OF THINGS…"

"Hmm." Shifty considered this for a moment, then seemed to accept it. "How about I do Stanford, then?"

The Dipper impression twisted grossly, expanded upwards and outwards, nearly doubled in height, sprouted an extra finger on each hand, and finally fell into a familiar trench-coated form. The tall figure adjusted his glasses with a frown. "Hot Belgian waffles!" It cried. "My latest experiments have yielded astounding results! By my calculations, it seems that my car… Has suffered a flat tire!"

Wendy nodded. "Niiiiice." She said, and extended both thumbs to show her support. "Spot on. Spot on."

The shapeshifter laughed. "Why thank you." It said. "I'm told I have talent."

Wendy nodded. "If you weren't in here, you could legit be a comedian. You know, like, you could pick random people out of the audience, do an imitation of them, and ask the rest of the audience to guess which was real? I WOULD GO TO THAT SHOW."

"Oh, how I'd love that." The shapeshifter nodded looking down at the cut on its chest. "Just too bad that… Real audiences have axes…" It chuckled half-heartedly. "Ha ha…"

"Yeah. Yeah." Wendy nodded slowly. "Poor you." She added under her breath.

Her eyes fell back to the chess board, and their unfinished game. Suddenly she noticed something.

"Hey wait a minute!" She smiled. "Look at THIS!"

"What?" Asked the shapeshifter.

Wendy moved her bishop into line with Shifty's king, and stood up from her lawn chair. "Oh, check it out, son!" She gloated. "That's checkmate! I won!"

"Well well WELL! Congratulations!" The shifter smiled and extended his hand forward. Wendy reached out to shake it, only to be reminded of the glass in the way.

"Wendy." Dipper's voice cut in on her elation. He was quiet and deathly serious, and she immediately froze with a frown. "Listen to me." He said.

The shapeshifter frowned. Something wasn't quite right. The human had ceased its victory dance suddenly, and now stood looking at the board with a quizzical expression. Its head turned away, and one of its hands reached up underneath its fur to fiddle with its ear.

Had he said something wrong? Had the human taken offense with something he said?

"Good job." He encouraged again, hoping to break the sudden tension. "You're better at this game than I am."

The human turned back toward him slowly, and a new, more cunning smile began twitching at the corners of its lips.

"Actually." The human shrugged. "No."

Shifty blinked.

"No." The human repeated. "I'm actually not great at this game. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I suck at chess. I was trying my hardest, and you made me feel really smart, but in truth I know I actually suck. And you know how I know that?" It reached under its fur, and pulled a small black plug out of its ear. "I'll tell you." It said. "I wasn't alone in this game. I had a friend on the other end of this communication system – a friend who's actually VERY good at chess. And do you know what he's telling me?"

"What?" Shifty frowned.

"He's telling me that for most of the time, you were playing even smarter than he would. But then 13 moves ago, when you could have put me in checkmate, you chose not to. You let me win. That means you weren't even playing the game at all, you were just… Chatting. Being friendly. Flattering. Working the conversation.

"Combined with everything else I've seen today; do you know what that says about you? It tells me, it tells us, that you're nothing but a lying cheat, who's much smarter and more cunning than he lets on. Now that we've got you trapped, you would do or say anything just to get free. Try to make friends with me. Laugh with me, joke with me, flatter me, tempt me… Even if that's not what you really mean. Even if that's not who we know you really are."

A spark of anger lit up in the shifter's heart, and he reverted back to his true form, where he towered over the watching human.

"It's like I told Mabel." The human continued, entirely unfazed. "We can't ever let you free. You know the REAL reason I came down here? It was to act on all of our hopes: that you might be redeemable or something, that you might be able to be fixed or pardoned, even let free. That's plan A. We don't want to keep you down here. We don't' want to keep you entrapped. But… But in the end, I was right. You're a monster. Ford says you always were a monster, and logic says you'll always BE a monster. So we're gonna have to choose between plans B and C. Plan B is to keep you frozen indefinitely, until we can find some better sort of prison. And plan C… Well. You can probably guess plan C."

Shifty approached the glass now, a step at a time.

"And IF." The human continued. "That doesn't appeal to you, you'd better start singing like a canary right now, and give us just ONE good reason not to."

He suddenly realized how dire things were. If this human weren't alone, then that means somebody may very well be up in the control room. They could freeze him before he could break the glass and escape. There may be a human in the observation room too, to track him on cameras and sensors. Escaping wasn't… Wasn't a possibility anymore. And now they intended to kill him.

Perhaps there was only one thing TO do. Perhaps he DID have to sing. (Not the whole truth, of course- just enough truth to deceive them into sparing him.)

"I have lied to you many times, it's true…" He admitted to the human below. "But trust me now when I say this: one day you'll wish you HAD let me out. You'll wish you had sucked up to me, not the other way around. You'll wish things could ever be as happy as chess again. You'll wish you had taken my kindest of lies."

The human cocked its head, unintimidated. "And why is that?" It said.

"Because I'm just waiting." He shrugged. "Know this; I'll be free eventually, for I'M NOT ALONE. My partner will be here one day soon just as he promised, and he'll open my cage, thaw my body, and we'll be free to roam the wide Earth, and conquer it as its alphas. I have friends to call upon. But I don't want that. My plan A is the same as yours. I would gladly have been a friend to you humans, a faithful friend for all my days… But you, stupid little children, and your stupid old friend Stanford: You've only ever treated me as a monster. How would you like it if I treated you just like prey?"

Still apparently unintimidated, the human relaxed back into its lawn chair, reached over to the hand-truck, and removed a bag of nacho chips. The stiff plastic of the bag crinkled noisily between the human's hands as it tore open. The human reached into the bag in a casual, unconcerned sort of way.

"And what's your partner's name?" The human asked. "I'm guessing William. No? Will maybe? Billy? Wait, that's right, it's BILL, isn't it?"

The human's hand came out of the bag, holding a single, yellowish, triangular chip.

The shifter froze, perplexed and frightened. The human KNEW.

The human popped the chip in its mouth, chewed and swallowed.

The shifter took a step back.

"Oh yeah." The human leaned back in the chair, and put its boots up on the table, upsetting all the chess pieces. "Good ol' Bill Cipher." It elaborated, eating another chip. "Yeah, we fed him his hat about 6 months ago. He's dead now. Out of the picture. Kaput. Erased. No hope for you there, shifty."

It didn't make sense, it didn't make sense!

"You don't know what you're talking about—" He told her.

"Oh, we don't?" The human tossed aside the bag of chips, stood up, reached into its wallet, and removed a small string of pictures. "Check these out!" The human lifted the pictures up to Shifty's eye level, and pressed them against the glass. "See?" It said. "Here's the monsters he sent in to terrorize us, here's him sitting on his unholy throne, here's us fist-fighting him in a giant robot, and here's Soos and I jack-hammering the stone statue he left behind when he died!

"Now, where are you in all these? That's right, you're still underground! Without a clue! He left you BEHIND, Shifty! He never cared about you! Let me guess: he showed up while you were dreaming, and told you sweet, flattering tales of grandeur and freedom. He buttered you all up behind Ford's back, had you make promises, maybe he told you who the destined ones from the zodiac were, so that you could try to kill us… But then he dumped you!

"You're talk of a 'partner' who 'made you promises'; yeah, that's just stereotypical Bill. That just _reeks_ Bill. And _we've_ learned to smell Bill from a _mile_ away. We knew him. And we know just how good he is at making rotten deals seem like great deals. You're not the first one he's twisted all around and hoodwinked. You're not the first one to think "Hey, he's just a dapper little nacho chip, how dangerous could he be?" You're not the first one to think it was all just dandy at the time. And you're not the first to find the truth to be straight-up butt-ugly.

"Fact is, he made the exact same sort of promise that you'd have made to us. How's it feel, pal?"

Wendy continued to hold the pictures up as the monster examined them. It seemed perpelexed for a moment, but then it suddenly burst out laughing. "Ah. Ha ha ha!" His hideous mouth spat slobber over the glass as he did so. "I think I get it. You think you've won! How delicious. News flash! You can't kill him, fool! Don't you know how to recognize when somebody's PLAYING with you? He was planning to meet defeat the first time; to cull his own weaknesses and to test you. He will be back to this dimension smarter and more twisted, and then he'll know ALL your predictable methods! If you want any REAL chance against him whatsoever, you'll need somebody on the inside. Somebody smart enough to play both sides. Smart enough to pretend to be HIS friend, and to betray and fool HIM. Somebody with no loyalties to either side. Somebody like ME."

Wendy just laughed again. "Dude, come ON. Is that what you're going with now? Geez, now you're just getting desperate. Anyway, GG mate. I think we're done here."

She put the pictures back in her wallet and made as if to leave.

"If you don't want my alliance!" The monster hissed after her. She turned back around, to see that it had now shrunk. It had thinned, converted to biped, grown clothes, and sprouted a tangle of red hair. Wendy was looking at a perfect imitation of herself. She saw her own body press itself up against the side of the tube's, her own tongue slobber all over glass, and her own voice cry out: "If you intend to treat me like that, then I've no loyalty to you either! I'll take my powers and talents, and I'll bring them to the KING! We'll conquer this world, conquer this universe, set some new rules, strip away every illusion of protection and safety, and I will stake out my territory over this continent!"

And with that, the shapeshifter began again to change. But this time, not into someone or something new. Instead, it took her form, and it twisted and deformed it. Her imitation's clothes ripped and spread, its fingers lengthened and grew hideous talons, and its mouth grew wider and wider, and its teeth got longer, sharper, and more numerous, until Wendy was looking at something out of a nightmare. A hungry, feral, monstrous mutation of her very own flesh.

"And on that day!" Wendy's voice roared from with the abomination. " I WILL EAT YOU FIRST, WENDY CORDUROY!" One of its spiny fists struck the glass, and left a crack.

"GEEZ!" Wendy cried, gesturing toward the abomination. "Yeah, see? See this? This is _exactly_ what I was hoping _not_ to deal with today."

She unzipped her jacket, and let it fall aside to reveal what lay beneath: Plan C, slung to her chest. This was a present from Ford. This was a subatomic fusion pulse laser.

The weapon's circuits chimed their readiness as she leveled the massive weapon.

She pointed it directly at the shapeshifter's head, and a small meter on the weapon's side lit up red as it reached full charge. Wendy wasn't sure what kind of knockback it would have (what does 'subatomic fusion pulse' even mean?), but she leaned forward, closed her eyes, and tensed her muscles anyway. Her finger tightened around the trigger.

Four voices began shouting at once from her earpiece.

From Mabel: "Happy thoughts!"

From Dipper: "WENDY! DON'T!"

From Melody: "Do it!"

From Soos: "I'm standing by for freeze DUDE!"

Wendy trusted one of these voices. She froze to the spot and her finger came off the trigger.

The hideous mimicry continued to stare at her. "Won't shoot me, Red? Well isn't that just the best part?" It hissed quietly. "The best part is that you cowards will let it happen. You'll just freeze me again, and walk away, and try to forget me. And on that day, when I am free, and you are the prey, you'll curse yourself for your foolishness, because you didn't kill me when you had the chance. You don't have the guts to pull that trigger now, and thusly will I triumph."

She kept the weapon pointed at him, caught in indecision.

"Wendy." Dipper repeated again, quietly. "Don't. You. Shoot."

She lowered the gun, and held the shifter's eyes for one last moment. Finally, she smiled and shrugged. "'Thusly?' Is that even a word?" She scoffed. "Hit it, Soos."

"Roger that, dude." Soos chimed.

The stasis tube hissed and whirred, as liquid nitrogen sprayed up and down pipes, into and out of the chamber, and all around the monster. Its skin crystalized, hardened, and turned as pale as snow. Soon it was obscured, as tiny criss-crosses of frost expanded to cover the tube's surface.

Their party seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

"All right." Wendy said. "I'm coming out."

She slung the laser's strap back over her shoulder, picked her jacket back up, and zipped it up over the weapon again. Then she picked the chess pieces, the chips, the table and the lawn chair, and replaced them all on the hand truck. She turned from the stasis tube, and began wheeling the hand truck back towared the decontamination room.

"Everything looks good on the cameras." Melody said. "Nothing unusual to report, and the stasis tube doesn't seem weakened by the crack."

"And we're all good and frozen, dawg." Soos assured them. "I'll come open the door for ya."

Wendy stopped outside the decontamination room.

"Call sign?" Soos asked through the crack.

"Federal Axe Refund." Wendy grunted. "Call sign?"

"Fire Hammer Dawgs."

"Dorky Dome."

"Okay. We're all good."

The door opened and she left the lab.

Some time during the trek up to the surface, after Soos and Melody had turned off their comms and gone on ahead, Wendy once again spoke into her ear piece. "Hey Dipper." She asked. "Is Mabel there?"

"No. She went off to do something for art class. What do you need?"

"Oh, I just wanted to talk to you private."

"Oh. Wassup?"

"Why didn't you want me to shoot?"

"It wouldn't have worked." He answered. "Since he's a shapeshifter, he could probably move his brain out of his head entirely. Firing a weapon would have just shattered the glass. Sure, it might have injured him, it might have injured him pretty bad. But mainly it would've just freed him. Didn't you see what he was doing? He taunted you with his words, and he tried to intimidate and outrage you by perverting your body… He WANTED you to fire, Wendy. That was his last-ditch effort for freedom."

"Oh…" She nodded. "Well… Wow. Hey, I'm glad we called you in. Because that stunt of his almost worked."

"Oh… Uh… Yeah… Yeah, no problem. No problem at all… Thanks."

"Yeah man."

"So…" Dipper voice was hesitant and uncertain this time. "So Wendy… Uh…"

"What?"

"Is Soos there?"

"No. Whatcha need?"

"No, I just wanted to make sure he wasn't there. Uh… Well… So… If you did have a weapon you knew could destroy him for good… Would you carry out plan C? Would you kill him?"

Wendy sighed, and glanced at the floor. "I want so badly to say no." She finally admitted. "I want to say I'm better than that. But… But yes. If you hadn't of stopped me, or if I had a better chance even now, I… I would. I would gut him."

Dipper was silent for a good minute.

"Does that make me a bad person?" She asked hesitantly.

"No." He answered too quickly, but he meant it. "No." He repeated, honestly. "I... I don't think so, at least... I think it just means you're strong. Strong enough to make a tough call, to pass a judgement. I don't see anything wrong with it; we all know how evil he is… But… I mean, what do I know? I'm 13. No. I was confused because I know that I wouldn't do it. Why wouldn't I?"

"Simple: he's unarmed and helpless, and you're an honorable man. You could never off him like that, not while he's a prisoner. But what do I know? I'm just 15."

"Ha ha. Yeah."

"Yeah. Well, see ya." She said.

"See ya." He said.

"I'll call you later if we can track down that meteorite."

"Awesome. I'll call you if I can decode that thing you found at the bottom of the lake."

"Awesome. See ya."

"See ya."


End file.
